Abortion undercuts respect for the disabled &#8211; Chaput

January 30, 2012

A Philadelphia hospital's alleged refusal to provide a kidney transplant to a mentally disabled three-year-old is yet another example of the harm legalized abortion is causing in the U.S., says Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput.

"The habit of treating genetically disabled children as somehow less worthy of life is growing across the country," Chaput said in a column for the archdiocesan newspaper.

He was commenting on the case of Amelia Rivera, whose parents say she was denied a kidney transplant because she has Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome, a chromosomal disorder that results in severe developmental retardation.

The parents say a doctor at the hospital told them a kidney transplant would not be performed on Amelia because she was "mentally retarded."

Chaput said, "We need to understand that if some lives are regarded as unworthy, respect for all life is at risk."